Oscars: Banksy Does L.A.

Banksy Art

Is it an elaborate Oscar campaign for his documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop?" A subversive statement on Hollywood's biggest night? Both? Either way, Los Angeles has been waking up lately to new pieces by the controversial street artist who goes by Banksy. He doesn't grant interviews and no one knows what he looks like. But the works that have been springing up around town have all of his witty hallmarks.
Light Group -- a Las Vegas company that manages casinos and restaurants -- was thrilled that Banksy chose to tag this billboard with a debauched Mickey Mouse lookalike. They called it "flattering" and said it was "cooler" now. The company has taken it down and is deciding what to do with it.

Banksy

Banksy Art

Is it an elaborate Oscar campaign for his documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop?" A subversive statement on Hollywood's biggest night? Both? Either way, Los Angeles has been waking up lately to new pieces by the controversial street artist who goes by Banksy. He doesn't grant interviews and no one knows what he looks like. But the works that have been springing up around town have all of his witty hallmarks.
Light Group -- a Las Vegas company that manages casinos and restaurants -- was thrilled that Banksy chose to tag this billboard with a debauched Mickey Mouse lookalike. They called it "flattering" and said it was "cooler" now. The company has taken it down and is deciding what to do with it.

Banksy

Banksy Art

In Israel, Banksy once painted a window on the West Bank barrier. With the addition of a kite, he puts an ironic spin on these iconic street signs alerting drivers throughout Southern California to watch out for people darting across freeways.

Banksy

Banksy Art

Banksy is up for an Academy Award for "Exit Through the Gift Shop," his documentary about a quirky French immigrant street artist and the bizarre alchemy of hype, fame, authenticity, aesthetics and money that drive the art world. The question remains: what's he trying to say, if anything, with his latest L.A. art?

Banksy

Banksy Art

The last time we know for sure that Banksy was in L.A., he decorated a warehouse as a living room and had an actual, real-life elephant painted to match the room's walls standing in the middle of it. Like his current L.A. jaunt, the man himself remained invisible.

Banksy

Banksy Art

Could this be the most accurate representation of what the artist thinks of the film industry and the award for which he's been nominated? As with the movie itself, the viewer is left wondering what he's getting at. Is "Exit" largely truthful or an elaborate ruse? And since he's apparently in L.A. does he plan to show up at the ceremony in disguise? Or at all?

Banksy

Banksy Art

Studios and nominees have been campaigning like mad -- printing full-page newspaper ads, hitting the talk show circuit. Banksy, meanwhile, has taken the unorthodox approach of hitting the back of an Urban Outfitters in Westwood with a stenciled image of a boy with a machine gun firing crayons in a field of bright flowers. Your move, Harvey Weinstein.

Banksy

Banksy Art

This image of an arsonist Charlie Brown with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth has actually disappeared -- it was physically cut out of the building by some enterprising art collector.

Banksy

Banksy Artshow

In 2006, an otherwise nondescript warehouse in downtown Los Angeles was transformed into a modern-day art gallery to show the most recent work by Banksy -- already elusive, at-large and one of the U.K.'s most-renowned graffiti artists.

Mileka Lincoln

Banksy

A real-life elephant, painted in pink and gold and positioned to match the room's surrounding wallpaper, marked the centerpiece of Banksy's exhibition "Barely Legal." The artist said, "The show is about the elephant in the room, the problems that we don't talk about. The fact that 10 billion people live below the poverty line. The fact that 1.7 billion people have no access to clean drinking water and the fact that 800 million people are sick to death of artists telling them what a bad place the world is without ever actually doing anything about it."

Jeff Rayner

Banksy Artshow

The free three-day event, billed as a "vandalized warehouse extravaganza," opened to an awaiting and eager public. The exhibit included traditional canvas artwork and sculpture but also incorporated more unconventional displays, including this life-size delivery van.

Mileka Lincoln

Banksy

The week before his 2006 show, Banksy managed to smuggle 500 "alternative" versions of Paris Hilton's debut album into record stores across London. Hilton's song titles were replaced with tracks named "Why Am I Famous?" and "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?'" Photos of Hilton throughout the CD cover sleeve were doctored. Here Banksy's work is displayed, complete with live Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

Mileka Lincoln

Banksy Artshow

Paris Hilton isn't the only celebrity Banksy has targeted in his artwork. Here he takes aim at Bazaar's nude cover photo of Britney Spears, who was six months pregnant at the time with her second child.

Mileka Lincoln

Banksy Artshow

While stenciled graffiti images have become Bansky's signature style, the graffiti artist has also "reworked" classic paintings and traditional scenes, such as this satire of the Wild West.

Mileka Lincoln

Banksy

Banksy achieved notoriety in the United Kingdom for stealthily tagging a stenciled image of an adulterous scene on the side of a clinic for sexually transmitted diseases in Bristol, England. Despite city policy, Bansky's graffiti mural was allowed to stay after an outpouring of public support in its favor.

Wooster Collective

Banksy

"Barely Legal" was Banksy's first solo gallery show in the United States, though in 2004, Banksy donned a disguise and managed to glue his own paintings onto the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City without attracting attention. Banksy has also committed similar acts of monkeyshines at the Tate Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris.

Wooster Collective

Banksy

Banksy's gallery stunts didn't end at the Met. In 2005, he hung a fake Stone Age artifact in the British Museum. The relic depicted a caveman pushing a shopping cart, complete with its own explanatory sign, which described the work as "early man venturing toward the out-of-town hunting grounds."

Mileka Lincoln

Banksy

One of Banksy's most high-profile stunts was this painting on the Israeli West Bank Wall. Banksy created parodied perspectives of life on the other side. Some images included a ladder leading over the wall, a hole revealing a snow-capped mountain range, and this ironically idyllic beach scene.